Comment by BugBrother | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BugBrother | Hacker News Reader

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I assume you argue: Someone can accept some strange stuff in their religion -- e.g. that the supreme being and creator of the universe really, really cares about details of financing and diet for a species in a galaxy far away -- but not other stuff, like e.g. slavery and rules for different sexual subgroups (women, homosexuals) of the species?

I also know some muslims. Without witnesses many are about as religious as I am, but most can't do that in public. At an absolute minimum they'd get social problems (ostracism) if they came out of the closet. In worst case, physical danger. Often even their relatives would get problems.

Edit: To give an example [After consideration, I removed this. Sorry, but I can't break confidence and risk that someone identifies my friends -- see previous paragraph. But do Google "enemy property act" for an interesting read, re Bangladesh.]

My original point was that it is harder for Muslims to just throw away the crazy/inhumane parts of their eternal Truths, since they've got better sources than a set of mutually contradictory books/testaments. So the extreme stuff tends to get back into circulation -- see the social control etc from the 2nd paragraph why that is hard to stop, there is a pressure to be "good" (there is some form of race to the bottom of being holier than thou).

The end result is that it is hard to take your suggested third option.

Was this clear enough?

And your last message to me -- right back at ya...

'Was this clear enough', yes I understood your original point and your response. But you haven't understood mine.

My point is that your view on muslims and religion in general to me seems so prejudiced that you can't seem to accept an honest anecdote by a fellow programmer from a different culture and mindset at face value without branding it a joke, a left wing oddity or full-on taliban. It's shocking to me that someone in the name of reason gives a nasty response to a well-meant comment. Prejudice and ignorance is one thing, but it's bigotry when you suggest asadlionpk is supportive of a culture of slavery, oppression of women and hate just for his remark that he's is doing fine with following the eternal law of God in this regard.

Yes, of course I can see the problems religion has with modernity and the problems it causes for society (the eternal law of interest-free banking is not one of them) and also the problems of social pressure. But a sizable chunk - lots of people I know - in this age of reason have learned to balance both internally and have chosen this belief consciously: your literally hard to take third option.

Other examples of these are for example people like imam Afroz Ali (whose esteemed teacher lives under a tree) or Tariq Ramadan. In these links they talk about economic reform inspired by the eternal laws of Islam: http://seekersguidance.org/islamcast/economy-poverty-and-the... http://www.salon.com/2002/02/15/ramadan_2/

I have little reason to believe asadlionpk assumes women shouldn't study or gays should be imprisoned. It's also irrelevant as he was just responding to your side note that some so-called 'eternal laws' don't seem to work in this day and age.

The reason I respond like this is because this way of responding to others in the name of enlightened reason is causing problems in my society at the moment. People even talking about leaving the country because they don't feel accepted in their faith and ethnicity. People feeling obligated to make 'happy muslim' video's to counter this mindset. It's not even my faith, as I am christian, but even I have to explain the so called crime of teaching my children about God. A God which is far removed from the deist human like entity you think muslims and christians believe in.

Have I understood you correctly? I hope you understand and respect my strong worded response.

I made a motivated and reasoned argument that Islam obviously have problems with extremism -- and it is in an all or nothing approach, hard to skip parts of the craziness.

I didn't argue that even the majority of muslims in the West are extremists, in e.g. Bosnia they had modern Islam. (But do check statistics in different countries about antisemitism, homophobia, etc. Also, see support for AlQ, before they started to kill too many muslims. Or the high number of votes for religious parties in many/most muslim countries.)

You answered by calling me intolerant and discussed how attitudes hurt yours/others feelings. Those aren't arguments, it is emotions. My girlfriend gets away with that, I expect better on HN.

If you want to move, consider Sweden.

The media there stamp Denmark and Norway as racist/fascist influenced (those are certainly on the top ten lists of most tolerant countries on the planet). The media is at the same time much, much milder about the intolerance preached in many mosques, so they have insane double standards. The Social democrat party almost put an islamist in the party board, until the media for once reacted. But don't worry, it is only religious homophobes and antisemites which are courted for votes, not right wing ones.

(And yes, this comment is certainly enough to stamp me much worse than religious people refusing to shake hands with women.)

You'd fit right in. But the long winter dark is painful.

You indeed made a motivated and reasoned argument that Islam has problems with extremism, as I said I understand and agree with it. Perhaps there is some misunderstanding. My response - in which i wrote bigotry not intolerance (not the same) - referred to your remark to asadlionpk, not to your explanation of your remark to me - in which you explained where you were coming from. Your exposition on extremism with regard to the nature of revelation in religion is all well and good, but imo you misapply this to the statement of an individual which says s he's quite sucesful with no-interest banking based on God's law. Perhaps he's a tolerant muslim living among quite tolerant/modern muslims in which case your remarks are not appropriate to his situation. No-interest banks can operate well in a non-sharia or non-fundamentalist state, or perhaps he's a liberal jew.

I am not calling you names, if so I apologize as that's not my intention. I don't see why you think my earlier comment is not a rational argument:

"but it's bigotry when you suggest asadlionpk is supportive of a culture of slavery, oppression of women and hate just for his remark that he's is doing fine with following the eternal law of God in this regard."

So to me it seemed you suggested that everybody who follows the laws of God (in this regard) is an extremist with your quote that asadlionpk "argue for a fundamentalist sharia state or similar" or you did not meant to suggest this but then you should have expressed it differently, imho. It's very difficult or impossible for me to read it otherwise.

I am not planning or thinking about moving anywhere. I meant other people do because of the misappropriation and misunderstandings about religion and culture.

The political double standards you speak of also exist here, fortunately the media at times pierces through these double standards. Perhaps you don't expect it but I respect your comment and I've no reason to stamp you or call you names because of that. I even sympathize with it. I also have no problem with people refusing to shake hands with women on religious grounds unless it's a sign of disrespect. You can respect people and not giving them a hand, just as much as you can practice non-interest banking and participate in a moderate religious way of life.

>> I also have no problem with people refusing to shake hands with women on religious grounds unless it's a sign of disrespect.

Uhm, my explicit point here is that if the muslims have some of the weird stuff they'll usually have the whole package.

To be clear -- it seems needed -- if someone isn't shaking hands with women then they will almost certainly have lots of attitudes which would make a non-moslem in Sweden almost burned today...

I have no problems with that burning, except the disgusting double standards for different people. The politically correct hypocrisy is even racist -- "those brown can't do better, don't hold them to the same standards as real people".

(A note: What the Swedish politically correct idiots I talked about lack, is a sense of history -- 150-200 years ago the state church in Sweden was as tolerant as the islamists, including most of the weird stuff. Like e.g. not tolerating peiple leaving the religion and forbidding prophylactics. This is totally forgotten now.)

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